


Trust is a Fragile Thing

by aeryntheofficial



Series: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x Reader Oneshots [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, F/M, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27563122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeryntheofficial/pseuds/aeryntheofficial
Summary: You tamper with the one thing that matters most in your relationship with Din - Trust.*Cross-posted to Tumblr*
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You, The Mandalorian/Reader, The Mandalorian/You
Series: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x Reader Oneshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2014675
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	Trust is a Fragile Thing

You and Din had been partners for several years at this point and had officially been in a relationship for almost half of that time. You both had met on some backwater planet going after the same bounty. At first, as is usual with Din, things were rocky at best. He wouldn’t talk to you unless absolutely necessary, and if he did it was usually two words or less. You wanted to rip your hair out with how hard it was to communicate with the man; but, as time went on, you both slowly started to break down each other’s walls. He already knew a lot about you, you were an open book, and you talked incessantly as a way to fill the silence that he refused to.

But eventually, he let you in.

He told you about his parents, his past life, and his total and utter devotion to the Mandalorians and his creed. While this was just the starting point in your relationship, it seemed almost inevitable that it turned into more. It had been after a near death experience on your part, when the usually stoic and silent Mandalorian had confessed his feelings for you. Not out right of course, but he had told you that he was terrified of losing you then told you his name, and you knew what it meant. In turn, you had told him how you felt, in more direct terms, and it was history after that. Several months later you and Din got the bounty for the Child and had been on a mission to find his kind ever since. With the child, your relationship with Din had seemed to grow stronger, the rigid and cold bounty hunter had turned into a soft and caring protector to the both of you. However, despite your relationship, Din was still heavily devoted to his creed and the Mandalorians. Something that you knew never to question, especially when it came to the helmet. You knew the importance of it, and that he was never supposed to remove his helmet in front of another living being. Hell, when you and the crew were on Nevarro he had almost let himself die to keep his creed. The only reason he was alive was because IG had convinced him that, since he wasn’t living, Din had not broken his creed. Din trusted you with this and many other things - He trusted you with his life, his name, and most importantly, he trusted that you would _never_ break his creed - something you always respected.

So, a year later when you were still searching for the child’s species and Din had taken the brunt force of an explosion from a bounty hunter, you were faced with an impossible decision.

Save Din or let him die?

your breathing was labored and frantic as you pulled him up the ramp of the Razor Crest. He was completely dead weight after he had been hit and it took everything in you to haul him back to the ship in hopes of helping him. When you finally got him into the hull, you immediately closed the hatch and set the ship’s coordinates for a nearby planet, returning back to Din as the ship took off. You grabbed the large medkit from the wall on your way back down to where Din lay and rushed over to him, kneeling so your knees were by his chest. Your eyes graze over his unconscious form, immediately taking note of the several injuries he had amassed from the earlier fight. You rapidly started removing his beskar, trying to get a better look at what you were dealing with, but you felt your lip tremble as the reality of the situation sank in. He had a head wound, a fatal one at that, if the amount of blood seeping onto the floor from beneath his helmet was any indication. But you had hoped, _prayed,_ to whatever god was out there that it wasn’t a head wound - that it was some chest laceration or a broken rib or _something_ that you could actually treat; but as you sat there and the pool of blood grew larger and his breathing shallower, you felt every naive hope slip from your fingertips and your hands gripped your hair fiercely.

_What should I do?_

Your mind, the instinctual and primal part, is screaming at you to rip his helmet off and treat him, to _save him_. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world - and to most, it was. But the other half of your mind is making you hesitate. You can’t remove his helmet, not without a terrible sense of guilt washing over your very being at the thought of taking away his way of life, his entire reason for living. Neither you or Din had ever really discussed what you were supposed to do in a situation like this, what you were supposed to do when it came to his life or his _way_ of life. Your heart felt like it was going to burst from your chest at any moment and felt like it was breaking simultaneously as you watch the man you love bleed out on the metal floor of the ship. And as you gazed at his dying form, mere inches away from you, one final thought crossed your mind.

_You couldn’t live without him._

Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was entirely a selfish and stupid reason to do what you did, but before you knew what was happening your hands lunged for the metal surrounding his head and pulled it off slowly, careful not to move his head more than necessary. You paused for a moment when your eyes finally fell upon the face of the man who held your heart. Despite his terrible medical state, you realized he was strikingly handsome. Thick dark hair atop his head and a dark scruff to match. You shook your head quickly, bile starting to rise in your throat as the realization of what you had just done hit you full force, almost knocking the wind out of you. You try and shove down the guilt and anxiety and instead focus on fixing him up. You find the lone canister of bacta spray, reserved for critical emergencies, and locate the wound on Din’s head. You gently place your hands on either side of his face and cautiously tilt his head side to side until you locate the source of bleeding. There was a large gash running from the back of his head to just under his left ear and it was deep. You quickly sprayed a liberal amount of the medical spray onto the wound and set his head back down gently. You notice some other smaller and less concerning scrapes on his face, but decide not to worry about them at the moment.

Your plan was to put Din’s helmet back on, and treat his other wounds, hoping that he wouldn’t even know that you removed his helmet in his vulnerable state. You swiftly replace the helmet back where it belonged before stitching up his less life threatening wounds on his chest and arms. You worked in silence, casting intermittent glances back towards his visor. What he wouldn’t know won’t hurt him…Right?

***

Wrong.

You were so wrong.

Well, you weren’t _completely_ wrong, in the fact that he wouldn’t know, because he didn’t. The Mandalorian had stayed unconscious for three days, resting and healing from his brush with death, and when he woke up, he was none the wiser.

_A startled gasp left your lips when a hand settled on your shoulder over the pilot’s chair. You looked behind you only to see Din, fully armored and standing with his hand rested gently on your shoulder giving it a small squeeze._

_“Thank you,” he says earnestly, “I know it couldn’t have been easy…getting me back here and patching me up.”_

_You feel a lump of guilt form in your throat, making it hard to speak, so you just nod. Causing a bubble of concern to blossom in Din’s chest. You were never usually this quiet._

_“Is everything okay?” he asks, voice thick with concern._

_You just nod again, and Din takes a seat in the co-pilot’s chair behind you, opting not to press the subject. After a few more tense moments of silence, you finally release a shaky breath and glance at him out of the corner of your eye._

_“You know I love you…right?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper._

_Din furrows his brows under his helmet, leaning forward slightly, “of course I know that.”_

_“Do you love me?” you turn to face him fully now, voice nearly failing you._

_Din shakes his head and looks at you, confusion filling his mind, “You know I do,” he splutters, “Why are you even asking me this?”_

_You shake your head, and swallow thickly, “I just wanted to hear it is all… I almost lost you, you know.”_

_Din stands and walks over to you, pulling you up and into his chest, hugging you firmly._

_“Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you, cyar’ika” he whispered, holding you firmly against him._

A silent tear fell down your cheek at the memory. It had been almost a week since the incident, and the guilt was eating you alive. You were wrong when you thought your actions wouldn’t have consequences. While Din was blissfully unaware of what happened, you were suffering silently and Din was starting to notice.

You had withdrawn from him since the intimate moment in the cockpit. Your usual quirky and sarcastic comments were replaced with silent nods and one word answers, and your sleep was nonexistent. He would often come to bed to find you wide awake, staring up at the ceiling or playing with the child - and even after he had retired to bed with you, you would turn away from him. Din didn’t know what he did wrong, if he was even the problem at all. He just knew that he couldn’t keep going like this - _you_ couldn’t keep going like this. He felt his heart shatter more and more each day as the bags under your eyes became more evident and the spark in your eyes disappeared, replaced instead with what seemed to be constant unshed tears. He finally decided to say something one day while you both were in the cockpit, the child asleep in his pod downstairs, and the first actual moment alone you two had in almost a week. You were staring aimlessly out of the ship at the millions of stars passing by, and Din felt his words catch in his throat as he gazed at you. You looked somewhat peaceful, the first semblance of contentment and calm that has crossed your features in a long time. Din sighed quietly before finally speaking up.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” his voice is small, so small and quiet you almost didn’t hear it. But you did - and it caused a whole new wave of guilt to wash over you and join the guilt already present. You physically deflated and you looked over to Din tiredly.

“I’m just tired is all,” you excuse lamely.

Din shakes his head and turns his seat to face you, “It’s more than that,” he argues, “You haven’t slept since I woke up, you barely eat -”

You cut him off, not ready to face the shell of a person you’ve become, filled with guilt and self-hatred at the thing you did, “I said _I’m fine,”_ you say pitifully, trying to be firm but it instead comes out in a broken whisper.

Din doesn’t stop, “You hardly even look at me anymore, you don’t want to be near me during the day _or_ at night, you don’t even talk to the kid anymore -” he continues to ramble, trying to get you to understand how much you’ve changed, that it _hurts_ him how much you’re withdrawn from him.

“Stop,” your hands find their way into your hair and you grip the strands as if they’ll somehow keep you grounded, “Just _stop!”_ you cry, tears now falling freely down your face.

Din is standing now, and he takes your hands in his own and pulls you to your feet, “Just tell me what I did so I can fix it,” he’s pleading now, he feels his own heart breaking in two at the anguish clear on your face.

You shake your head and try to pull away from him but his hold is firm, “ _you_ didn’t do anything!” you exclaim, your thoughts are frantic. You haven’t slept in god knows how long, you can’t even think straight, all you know is that Din is sitting here blaming himself for what _you did_ , and he doesn’t even know it.

“Then what’s wrong?” he’s begging now, “please, _cyra’ika,_ just tell me what I can do, tell me what’s wrong so i can help.”

At these words the dam finally bursts. It’s like a flood of all the possible human emotions rush over you at once as you rip your hands from his grip and stumble away from him, no longer in control of your actions.

“You can’t help me!” you wail.

DIn reaches for you again and you swat his hands away as he speaks, “I can try-”

“ _I took off your helmet_ ” you finally sob.

It’s like a flip is switched.

Din’s soft and concerned demeanor is snatched away in an instant as he stands tall and rigid, taking a step away from you as you stand in the doorway to the cockpit, hand resting on it for support. His chest heaves as he breathes and you can hear it from where you stand, as your skin prickles with the tension now filling the room, and you feel your heart sink to the pit of your stomach.

“You _what?_ ” His voice is robotic, but you don’t miss the seething anger present in those two words.

Your gaze drops to the floor, “I took it off when you were injured,” you whimper.

Din doesn’t say another word, he just continues to stand where he is and stare at you. Somehow the silence is more unerving than if he were screaming at you, you honestly wish he was doing that - or _something_ other than looking at you in silence. So you try to fill the silence with an explanation.

“You were dying I had to do-”

He cut you off taking a threatening step towards you, “No! You didn’t. You didn’t _have_ to do anything!” he’s yelling now.

You can’t see it, but under the helmet Din is falling apart before you. His heart sank the minute the words came out of your mouth, and his heart ripped in two and made his chest ache. He loved you, he cared for you and yet he could only feel one thing at this moment.

_Betrayal._

His mind was foggy with it as he stared at you, anger and rage consuming his entire being. You _knew_ the rules, his creed, his way of life, yet you betrayed his trust and took all of that away from him and it _hurt._ The one person in the entire galaxy that he felt that he could trust, he had lost.

“What would you have done in my shoes? You were fucking bleeding out on the goddamn floor of the ship! Would you have let me die?” you were bawling now, tears cascading down your cheeks and snot dribbling from your nose as you tried to wipe them both away.

“No I wouldn’t have let you die,” he says, “because saving you wouldn’t have taken away your entire way of life,” he grinds out.

You throw your hands out to the side, “Then what was I _supposed_ to do?”

“You should have let me die.”

The finality in his words shock you to your very core. As if that was the only reasonable answer to the problem at the time, like it was so obvious, you shook your head in disbelief.

“Let you die? You would rather me have let you die than save your life?”

“Better than living a life betraying the people who took me in.”

You could feel yourself crumbling from within, you were losing him, and it was all your fault.

“I’m sorry! Din you have to understand-”

“ _Stop!”_ he yelled, his words harsh and clipped, “don’t say my name.”

You furrow your brows in confusion and anguish, “What? Please, what are you doing?”

“I _trusted_ you (y/n). I trusted you with _everything,_ and you betrayed it all, you betrayed me-” his voice cracked, and even though you couldn’t see his face you knew he was crying, “so don’t _ever_ say my name again. Ever.” he bites.

It feels like your entire body lost all sense of everything. Everything was numb, everything except the deep ache in your chest where your heart was supposed to be.

“I love you, I couldn’t just let you die,” you whisper desperately, trying in vain to get him to understand.

Mando turns on his heel and returns to the pilots seat, helmet turned only slightly towards you, “if you really loved me, you would have let me die on that floor. Because this-” he gestures vaguely around him, “knowing my creed has been destroyed by the _one person_ I trusted most….It’s worse than any death.”

He turns back to the controls before you can speak, “we’ll do what we have to do until we find the kid’s species. Then you have to go.”

His voice is cold and calculated. Nothing like what you have been used too since you all have been together, and you realize in that instant that this isn’t Din. It’s the Mandalorian. You had lost Din the minute you told him what you did.

So you just nod, knowing he can’t see you and leave the cockpit, going to the spare cot in the back of the ship for the first time since you had become partners. You collapse into the cot curling your knees into your chest as you let sobs wrack your body. You had ruined everything, all because you let your own love and emotion get in the way. You knew you wouldn’t change a thing…you couldn’t. You loved the man in beskar, more than life itself, so even though you knew it would ruin things - you would make the same decision again. At least he would still be with you, even if he hated you now. As you continued to cry over what you lost, the first signs of sleep in days finally overcame you. And as you fell into a dreamless slumber, you were unaware of the usually stoic Mandalorian crying over what he lost too.

****

**_15 years later_ **

True to his word, Din had let you stay and help him until the child was successfully reunited with his people. Fifteen years it had taken to find the child’s home. Fifteen years full of empty space and weeks of drifting and the black, star filled void as they searched beyond the known universe. You could count on two hands the amount of times you and Din had spoken to one another since that fateful night. You lived with your decision every day since then, the guilt was ever present in your mind as you continued to exist with Din and the child. He kept his helmet on, despite the creed being broken, and you didn’t dare ask why. Something that Din was grateful for since he wouldn’t have had an answer.

These past fifteen years had been the hardest on Din than the forty before them. He still loved you. He knew that he could never really stop loving you. But he could also never find it in himself to forgive either. The betrayal ran too deep, the fact that _you_ of all people were the one to do it, made it even worse. So, in his day to day life, he did his best to avoid you and when he did have to interact with you it was strictly professional and with as little talking as possible. Because he knew if he allowed himself to open up again, he would forgive you immediately. It had been a _long_ fifteen years, and the emotional and physical damage of this time were showing on both you and Din.

He had noticed this as he stood next to you on a tropical planet, the one he was dropping you off on after all these years, just like he said he would once their mission was complete. It was inhabited, not well known but had ports if you ever wished to leave. As much as he wanted too, he didn’t hate you. He wasn’t going to dump you on some hell hole planet and leave. He wanted you to be happy, he just couldn’t be a part of it…not without feeling that constant betrayal and mistrust.

He had managed to find a small beach and landed the ship, watching silently as you gathered your things into a backpack and exited the ship without a word. He followed behind you a few paces, watching as you kicked your shoes off and took them in your hands before wiggling your toes in the sand and turning your face up towards the sun, eyes slipping closed. He finally followed you the rest of the way out and took a place next to you and that’s when he truly noticed the damage the last fifteen years had done.

He could see the silver hair blending with your natural color around your roots and along the top of your ears. He noticed the small wrinkles around your eyes as you cast a bittersweet smile at the sun. but most of all, as you finally turned to look at him, he noticed the faraway look in your eyes, the absence of any and all meaningful emotion.

You gave him a small smile, “Guess this is goodbye.”

Mando doesn’t say anything, he can’t past the lump in his throat, so he just nods.

The first emotion he’s seen in awhile, sadness, passes through your eyes as you continue to stare at him.

“I did it because I loved you, you know? Still do.” you say sadly, face turning back to look across the ocean at the lowering sun.

Din is silent for a moment before he nods, “I know.”

A smile spreads across your face, a genuine contented smile, and you turn to look at him one last time.

“Good luck out there Mando.”

Then you turn and walk along the shoreline, leaving your footprints in the sand behind you.

Under the helmet, a tear leaves a trail down Din’s cheek as he watches you leave, the ocean waves washing away the prints in the sand as you get further and further away. Once he can no longer see you, only then does he turn and enter the ship, closing the door behind him, and taking off.

You watch from the shoreline as the telltale silver streak of the Razor Crest glints across the sky and into the galaxy above. And as you sit in the sand and Din sits amongst the stars, you both realize you are both truly and utterly alone.


End file.
